Sunday, November 23, 2014

Deer Me

A friend was glad she
shot a deer and shared her excitement and exuberant joy all over town. First
the antlers appeared on Facebook and then she shared the photos in person as
well as the detailed tale. Every move she made to harvest meat was epic and
every episode shone clear from her adrenaline-soaked memory to my staid antique
composure. I tried to be uncharacteristically demonstrative, but doubtless
failed. At any rate, she said, “You want a haunch?” The query was answered in
the affirmative and so it came in white paper with her presence to instruct the
not-so-sharp wielder of sharpness, me.

I have cut up venison
before. Venison is a name for deer we got from the French. We do not like to
say we are having dead deer for supper so we say venison, just like when we don’t
want to use the Anglo-Saxon “sweat” we use the French, “perspiration.” I got
two nice roasts, a few good steaks and a bunch of stew meat from the generous
gift. What was left of the meat, gristled, undesirable, useless, hanging onto
the bone like moss on cypress, became late night repast for whatever roamed the
nearby woods. I served it quietly and with great humility, hurrying away before
some imagined spot-lighter could illumine me and take me for a sylvan ungulate,
and I mean take me in both senses of the word take. We expressed our gratitude
to our marksman, that is, markswoman friend and she departed gleeful to have
shared the meat she herself had acquired through skill and hardihood and
endurance in the deep woods she called, as is common around here, the deer
woods.

Wouldn’t it make the
prolific squirrels a bit indignant if they knew we were designating their woods
as deer woods? I never heard a soul say squirrel woods, and no one ever uttered
crow woods or armadillo woods. And, I doubt the deer have sense enough to be
proud of the undeserved nomenclature. Why not call them animal woods, or game
woods or just plain woods. I would.

Speaking of armadillos,
if they would just learn to keep their cool and not jump they would live a lot
longer. We see so many armadillos sleeping with their fathers, to use a
biblical euphemism, in the middle of the road because they jump up and get
clobbered. If they would stay low, they would survive. (Staying low may be good
advice for many of us). I like armadillos even though they carry leprosy. They
are armored possums and resemble them on the underside. The armadillo sow
always has four young at a time and they are always of the same gender,
because, I’m told, they come from a single four-chambered egg. I also read that
these primitive creatures cannot swim. When they cross a stream, they walk
turtle-like on the bottom, having the ability to hold their breath for a long
time. Maybe that’s why you don’t see many of them in Mississippi.

I heard a man in Drew
County say the best hamburger he ever had was in Amarillo and the best barbecued
armadillo he ever had was in Hamburg. Go figure.